Diet and nutrition

Abstract

Recognition that there are factors in the diet which can profoundly influence individual susceptibility to cancer is a first step toward utilizing these mechanisms to protect populations from unidentified carcinogens or from those that are known and for various reasons cannot be eliminated as a health hazard. Epidemiologic studies and animal experimentation clearly indicate a critical need to learn more about how dietary factors affect people so that they can be used in the prevention of cancer. Changing people's eating habits offers one of the most exciting means to change the course of cancer morbidity and mortality. There can be no doubt that in many population groups dietary habits are central to the incidence of some forms of cancer, and through astute observation and experimentation we can learn to use nutrition as a major modifier in our efforts toward cancer prevention.